CHAPTER 3- AGAIN?

POV: ELENA

I almost canceled the Sterling meeting twice that morning. Both times, Nadia talked me out of it before I finished the sentence.

"Girl, you are not canceling a business meeting because you're still buzzing from throwing wine on a stranger," she said, mouth full of toast. "That man doesn't get to cost you a client too."

"I'm not hungover."

"Girl…at this point you sound hungover."

"I'm just tired, there's a difference." I stood in front of my closet holding two blazers like either one might solve something.

"What if he tells Sterling? What if this is already a problem?"

"Then if standing up for yourself is a problem, any company that holds that against you isn't one you want representing your work to. Wear the navy one and go."

Sterling's building sat in the financial district — glass, cold marble, a lobby built to make you feel small before you even reached the elevator.

I checked in, got a visitor badge with my name spelled almost right, and rode up rehearsing my pitch. Three pieces instead of one. A price that reflected what the work was worth, not what I could be talked down to.

A receptionist led me to a small waiting area outside a frosted-glass conference room. "They're just wrapping another meeting," she said. "Won't be long."

I sat with my portfolio across my knees and tried hard not to think about the wine-soaked silk, I was mostly managing not to

The glass doors opened. Voices spilled out — a few suits, a woman gripping a tablet, and then him.

I knew that voice before my eyes even caught up. Same dark suit, a different one this time, no wine on it. Same jaw, braced like it was permanently mid-argument.

He was talking to someone beside him, not looking my way, and for one second I let myself hope I could simply make myself invisible.

He didn't walk past, his eyes landed on mine and stopped.

"You," he said.

Flatter than I expected. Not with anger, something closer to disbelief, like the universe had made a clerical error that needed fixing.

"Me," I said, standing, because sitting through this felt worse than facing it upright. "Small world I guess."

"You're here for Sterling."

"I'm here for a meeting. Apparently with you, though nobody warned me, since I was told this was Sterling's office."

I glanced at the doors he'd just come through. "Unless you followed me, which would honestly be stranger than the wine."

That almost got something out of him. Not a smile. The ghost of one, gone before it landed. "I own a stake in Sterling. I sit in on relevant negotiations. This happens to be one."

"Of course it does."

"You could've mentioned who you were meeting before you agreed to it."

"You could've read the wall before you told me to take down my own painting." I shifted my case to the other arm. "We're even on surprises."

The receptionist cleared her throat, sensing tension she didn't understand. "Ms. Martinez, they're ready."

Mike didn't move.

"I'll sit in," he told her, not me.

"That's not necessary," I said.

"It's my stake being discussed."

"And it's my painting."

We stared at each other one beat too long, long enough that the receptionist's smile started to strain. Then he turned and walked back through the doors like the matter was already settled — which, infuriatingly, it was, because my only choice was to follow him in or walk out completely, and I hadn't come this far to walk out.

The room was exactly what I expected. Long table, city views, five men in nearly identical suits who all looked up like I was the day's entertainment. Mike took the head of the table without having to ask, like the seat had been saved for him his whole life.

They walked me through their offer. Standard rate, standard timeline. Everything delivered by a man named Grayson, in the flat tone of someone reading numbers off a screen he didn't fully understand.

I let him finish. Then I opened my folder, pulled out their own proposal, the one they'd emailed me two days ago and turned it to face the table instead of me.

"This clause," I said, tapping the page. "Exclusivity on secondary reproduction rights. Ten years."

"Standard, for a piece this size," Grayson said.

"Except your installation budget assumes the piece appreciates over that same decade. You're citing my last three years of sales growth to justify the price." I said.

I looked up. "You can't have it both ways. If the work's appreciating, locking reproduction rights for ten years suppresses its market value, and you're undercutting your own investment. If it's not appreciated, your offer is too high by your own math."

The room went quiet. Grayson's mouth opened, nothing came out.

I looked at Mike. He wasn't looking at Grayson anymore. He was looking at me, and whatever had been irritation on his face a moment ago had shifted into something else entirely, a man recalculating his whole strategy in real time.

"No one caught that," he said, almost to himself.

"No,I caught it.” I said.